Gerry
by Mopps
Summary: One man making his way through the new wastes of the world, his path towards the Capital Wasteland and a new beginning. Cort's universe, different time. Ghoulification, the fall of society and all that happy snappy jazz. Winthrop, circa 2078.
1. Gerry

_My ongoing adventures of Cort and Charon is still my main focus, but this plot bunny has been biting my ass ever since I did those two chapters in Into the Pitt(people who have read those will probably know exactly who this is about if you pick up on the clues, and I'll post it in the story description later, once I've written the second chapter. For now, isn't the surprise at the end of the first fun?). I'll be using it as a way to refresh myself now and then, and I hope you folks enjoy it._

_

* * *

_

**Gerry** pushed up, groaning, the feeble and diseased sunlight hitting him in wavering bars through the blasted trees forcing him up and out of a cold but comfortable oblivion. It was another fantastic morning in the shit-stained armpit the world had become, and time to get moving. Unfortunately, what had stopped him from moving the night before was a pack of hopped up crazies hell-bent on either killing, robbing or screwing him blind, or all three in God only knew what order. Not one hundred percent confident on the particulars as they had happened, he nevertheless decided that he had managed to take all of them down before falling unconscious out of pure exhaustion; if any of them had been left even a scrap alive, he would certainly have been dead right now. It was blind luck that no one else had stumbled on the clearing he was holed up in, and downright fucking amazing that the stench of blood and cordite hadn't attracted one of the large packs of feral dogs now roaming the shattered cities and burnt countryside, abandoned and orphaned pets sopping up the remains of their former gods. Gerry patted at his crotch, disgustedly noticing something else that was sopping, and swore.

"Christ. Waxing poetic while you shiver in your own piss, and you didn't even get to drink yourself into it." Staggering to his feet, he swore again and spat before looking around warily, a healthy wad of paranoia replacing the clot of mucus he had just snucked out of his head. Standing with his head cocked to one side, hands flexing slowly in and out as he listened, anyone who had known him before the bombs dropped would be hard-pressed to recognize him, and would probably have ended up shot for their trouble if they had and foolishly decided to call out a greeting.

Somewhere in the range of six feet, it was hard to tell with the brutish way he was hunched over, what someone looking at him would see was a man with one foot in a lost civilization and one in the primordial ooze his forebears had evolved from, one slipping reluctantly out as the other slid inexorably in. They would see iron grey hair that had once been neatly trimmed to short and tidy was now unkempt and shagging around his ears, one of which had what was either a leaf or a swatch of dried gore stuck behind it. Impossibly blue eyes staring out of a gaunt face that might have been open and kind at one point but was now so hard and flat it was like a visual clap of thunder. He was dressed in a mishmash of clothing, ragged army coat over a sport jacket over a bulky sweater that might once have been a blue close to his eyes, and two pairs of jeans that could have fit in another life covered by baggy businesswear slacks that never would.

Sparing one last furtive glance for the seemingly endless march of dead trees around him, pitiful shedding things that would have been a swath of green pine not even a full year beforehand, he quickly gathered up all the weapons he could see and then fell on the closest body, tearing through the pockets on its equally mismatched garb before moving his attention to the corpse's feet, swearing a second later. "Gods damn you, you sick, inconvenient sonofabitch. Why couldn't you have a decent-sized pair of feet." Jerking his head up and looking around, he scuttled over to the next closest of his would-be assailants and repeated the treatment, this time turning up something that turned his face into a ravenous nightmare, before it was reformed by simple, pure bliss. Whipping his hands up so fast it was a wonder that he didn't break his nose, he crammed the squashed, half rotten orange into his mouth, gobbling every scrap of bitter peel and slurping the rancid juice off of his chapped palms, tongue tracking down inside his cuff and nibbling over the dirty fabric to draw out any moisture that might have been drawn into it. It was the first thing he had eaten in almost a week, and it was ambrosial. Sighing happily, he resumed his pilfering of the recently deceased, immediately jamming anything edible into his mouth and anything useful into his pockets before stripping the raiders -and that was a good word for them, the fucking bastards came at you like a squad of Robin Hoods from hell- of clothing, finally finding a replacement pair of boots for his own tattered dress shoes, hooting when he put them on. This one had been a soldier, and Gerry pulled his dogtags loose as well, thinking the chain could be useful. Best of all was a pair of army-issue gloves tucked into one of the man's pockets, a _matching_ pair, and this discovery almost overshadowed his splendid new footwear(if, by miracle of miracles there had been intact socks in the boots, Gerry was positive he would have orgasmed on the spot. There wasn't, but he could happily keep wrapping his feet up in rags, if it meant they would stay clean and dry, _especially_ if his hands were too). He also ripped the remaining leather from his shoes apart and squirrelled that away. That could be edible, if he got desperate. At the very least, chewing it could make him think he was eating something, if he managed to pretend hard enough. He was getting good at that.

The remainder of his shrunken stomach stuffed on a surfeit of mouldy bread and assorted scraps, he turned his attention to the rest of his body, patting lightly but not feeling much in flesh deadened by the unending cold. He knew he had been shot, but apparently not seriously, if he was still kicking and couldn't remember where. Hauling back a newly booted foot, he kicked at the head of the closest corpse, smiling at the hollow sound it produced, the side caving in like a ripe melon. "That's right, you skinny little shit. Gerry's still kicking." Lashing out his foot one more time, he grunted in satisfaction, then gathered up his wearable spoils, hovering over the cache of guns as he stripped off his soiled clothes, and a new wave of shivering passed over him, teeth chattering as the cold struck his bare skin. It was always cold now, always freezing, and anything he couldn't wear was tied in bundles over a tattered knapsack he carried, used along with the last leaves the world would see as nesting material when he slept. Squinting as he used the dry parts of one pair of fouled jeans to scrub the cold piss from himself, he looked up and tried to judge what time it was, his eyes flicking around shrewdly every few seconds. The sun had started appearing again barely a week ago, if you could call a muddy circle that looked like God's own holy glowing asshole an appearance. Gerry called it about fucking time, he was tired of living in perpetual gloom, and was almost anxiously hopeful that the stars would soon expose themselves, give him at least a rough idea of where he was, in this fine...he smiled, childishly pleased at having figured out what he had been after, and for a moment his face was heartbreakingly beautiful.

"Morning, in August, give or take. It's around eleven, and a healthy smidge above freezing if I'm not dead, well Hallelujah. At least you didn't sleep past noon Gerry, you lazy old coot." Hissing as he scrubbed over his thigh, he looked back down, noting a red swiping gouge on the inside. "Yup. Shot. No wonder I didn't notice, accidental incontinental camouflage. At least it missed my bits, Hallelujah." There were wounds in various mended states all over him from bloody to faded scars, bullets and stabs and bites, although these last were relatively minor, the layered hodgepodge of clothing worn as protection against the harsh nuclear winter doing excellent duty against fanged teeth. Unless something was crippled, he was more apt to lay himself up in some hidey-hole instead of using one of the precious Stimpaks he had scavenged, not knowing when he might run across another, so he cleaned the ragged furrow off as best he could and started redressing, not giving any particular thought to infection. One benefit to this apocalyptic shit-fit, if you could even call it that, considering it had sterilized the good along with the bad, was the fact that harmful bacteria seemed to have gone the way of the dodo, along with practically everything and every_one_ else.

Thinking of Stimpaks, he reached into a little bundle of collected oddments, wrapped up in a stained shirt he had co-opted for the purpose. The set of asswipes from last night had had four, one each, practically a bonanza out here in the boonies, and he hid them inside his sport jacket, wrapping them with scraps of fabric to protect them from any falls he might take. He applied the same care to the Buffout and Mentats, and after tucking those away, carefully examined the one solitary pack of Psycho he had turned up. This was particularly tricky stuff, something that he shouldn't even have known existed, but with his whole department being run by brassheads for several decades, it wasn't hard to hear things that weren't supposed to be said, particularly when everything had started to go to shit; you just had to make sure you weren't stupid enough to repeat them. Not unless you _wanted_ to disappear without a trace, along with anyone in your immediate family. Gerry tilted the strange conglomeration of syringe and vials back and forth, staring at it with more hate than the little object alone should have deserved, being inanimate and therefore blameless. "General Chase's dirty little secret, one of many, you egotistical dingbat. How much of this was your fault, Connie?" He let his hand drop, staring sullenly at the ground. "How much of it was mine, helping to fill those poor, _beautiful_ rockets up with warheads, fucking death in a raped dream." Suddenly not caring that he could trade it if he found someone who wouldn't shoot him for it first, not giving one fucking shit that it might mean a scrap of bread or a chance at beating through whatever monstrosity the world threw at him next, he hauled back his arm and flung the drug as hard as he could, a guttural scream breaking out of him as it smashed to pieces against a tree. Panting too hard, blue eyes too bright, he let a sob run out of him as the collection of various chemicals ran down the flaking trunk to puddle in the barren earth at the base. "Gerald Bruce Winthrop, you stupid, cowardly old bastard, how much of this is _your_ fault?"


	2. I'm in the Gutter, May I See the Stars?

_Man, Fanfiction doesn't give you the option to select Winthrop for stories but gives you freakin' Arkansas? Terrible oversight, people. This fic will involve OCs and quite a bit of invention on my part, since it's heading through areas that aren't really in the games. Also, this fic will only update every few weeks, but it won't be even near to as long as my others, so you won't be hanging forever. He'll still be popping up in the mains, too. :) Thanks much for the favs, and thanks for the review, Lady NeverAfterNon!_

_

* * *

_

**Sitting** on an outcropping of rock in the failing sunshine, Gerry was trying to soak up as much warmth as he could find before he would have to go to ground for the still mercifully short night. He was looking out over a small valley in what he thought was the southern end of the Midwest Commonwealth, what had formerly been the state of Georgia. It hadn't held up any better than the shattered landscape he had come out of; true, most of the trees were still standing, but one unholy mother of a forest fire had ripped through all of them sometime in the proceeding months, leaving the whole valley he was in looking like it was populated with rotted, over-used toothpicks, the leftovers of the last cocktail party in Hell. Staring out at them, he decided his new stomping grounds left much to be desired. Gerry dropped his eyes back down, not having seen anything and tired of looking. "No more desire, no more dessert. Just deserted. Hallelujah."

He had moved out of the Florida panhandle entirely a week after his encounter with the four raiders, and stayed as far away from anything approaching civilization as possible to prevent another encounter, which unfortunately included roads and the signs thereon. The tussle he had had with them hadn't been the first, not by a long shot, wouldn't be the last either, but had come closer than any to ending him entirely, something he wasn't quite ready do do yet. Even as large as it was, and ignoring the fact that it was now for the most part, a colossal radioactive swamp, the idea of being hemmed in on any type of peninsula made him nervous. If there was nowhere to go anymore period, up here he had at least a lot more wiggle room to not get there in. Considering how bedamned _cold_ it was, he was planning on a lot of wiggling.

For now, he was tossing pebbles at an empty Cram can to keep his hands busy, cheering quietly to himself whenever he managed to sink one in. Once he had exhausted the little pile, he would walk briskly enough to make himself warmer but not sweaty, sweat could kill you faster than anything out here if it was allowed to creep into your clothing, and make a nice, cozy nest in the hidey-hole he had scouted out earlier. He had found an overhang on the west facing slope of the valley, one that would be blissfully warm for half the night, and showed no recent signs of habitation, human or otherwise. Knowing he could go to sleep without the prospect of having to nip off anything frostbitten in the morning was so luxurious an idea it was almost obscene, especially considering how far inland he was.

It was warmer near the coast, even during the eternal night of the seemingly endless winter he had gone through. The only problem was, the larger cities were near the coast, or at least what was left of them(he thought even those that hadn't been directly hit were still going to need one shitload of fresh paint and new screen doors to make themselves presentable enough for him to come calling). Gerry had been floating back and forth in between the no man's land of smaller towns and forests hemmed in by the Atlantic and the tail end of the Appalachians, middling around in a sort of purgatory. Trying to cross over the mountains would be almost suicide; even in a regular winter the various Highway Departments had always had a hell of a time keeping the roads clear, and he wasn't sure he even wanted to go into the interior as it was. It didn't sound any prettier than where he currently was, if he went by what his little radio had said.

From the increasingly scattered reports he had heard, the frequency decreasing as the insanity of them went up, he had gotten the overwhelming impression that the nation's geographical makeup had gone out to lunch and stayed there; it was only corroboration for the horrendous ground shocks he had felt, one after another, after another, the blackened char of week-long fires he had seen painted on the dust thrown up by the detonations that had caused them. Considering the amount of warheads he knew that their country had had _alone_, he wasn't honestly surprised at the thought that the continents as a whole weren't quite in factory condition anymore. Gerry didn't think God would honour the warranty either, he was pretty sure bringing on the apocalypse early had skullfucked whatever the terms of agreement had been. "Don't matter if there was no money down, don't think we were finished with the payments yet. Adam and Eve should have read the fine print. No returns, no refunds, no exchange." He threw another pebble.

Heading into the interior had helped him to notice some other things. It was getting drier. Gerry wasn't quite sure if this was good or bad, although not having to worry about frigging radioactive snowstorms was definitely a plus. Since the sun had started punching through the murky cloud cover in earnest a month ago, there hadn't been much of anything, snow or rain or sleet, and while it was nice not to be pumping himself full of Rad-X or Rad Away half the time(he spent so often feeling nauseous that he was starting to feel off his stride when his guts _weren't_ rolling over), he was getting more than a little concerned. It was still cold as a witches' tit, and now he had to worry about finding water on top of everything else. Gerry snorted. He had to worry about finding everything _period_. He looked up again, scanning, bleak blue eyes in a dirty face sheltered by an even dirtier hood.

"Find things. I found them. Why did I have to find them. Why do I have to be happy they're dead. Why can't I be dead."

His sister and his nephew, both gone, both dust now. He wished they had been dust when he had found them, if only not to know that it was them, or at least not to see the mangled things that they had turned into. He thought there were the parts of three other children buried with the boy. He wasn't sure what had belonged, and wanted to make sure he didn't leave anything out. His nephew had always gotten upset over misplacing his toys, missing an ear or a hand would have really fried his bacon. Half of him had looked like it was fried, and stuck to the floor when he-

Yanking his hood back, Gerry flung his other arm out in an oddly graceful gesture, one that in another, brighter world a man might have used when offering his hand to some seated lady as an invitation to dance, and then quickly brought his palm back across his own face with brutal force, the solid, meaty sound of the impact echoing partway down the hill. He dropped both back into his lap and sat silently for a few moments as his eye watered and an angry red weal rose up on the same cheek, then calmly picked up the next pebble.

"Stopped thinking about that. Good. I don't think about that anymore."

There had been advance warning on the Eastern seaboard after the Western was lit up like a Communist Christmas tree, something that had given him time to get himself out of the USSA installation he worked in and home, and from there up the highway, until the bombs had finally started to fall like fat, heavy rain. Mercifully, although he couldn't find any mercy for himself in what had happened, wouldn't allow himself to, he had been on a nondescript and unimportant stretch of blacktop when the shit had finally hit the Atlantic coast's fan, having chosen secondary roads instead of the panic-clogged main arteries. The unimportant places were the places that had survived. Gerry was of the firm opinion, at least in regards to himself, that the unimportant people had too. He clenched his hands, then relaxed, and threw another pebble. Gave a small cheer.

Going after his family had at least saved him, and in more ways than one. it had gotten him out range of the bombs aimed for the USSA and the larger cities, away from the anarchy along the coast, and the tidal wave that had moved up afterwards. Gerry's best bet was that that was a result of whatever had happened to Cuba, considering how far inland the water had made it. If he hadn't made it to higher ground, he would have drowned, and by the time he realized how easy it would have been to just run a little slower, just let the water take him away to be crushed by the debris and find a comfortable place to spend eternity rotting with all the other bodies, convenient doorstep-delivered companionship for the afterlife, it was too late and he was clinging to the top of a palmetto tree. He had fallen asleep up the damn thing, and he supposed that was just as well. It had kept the surviving whackjobs from seeing him, the bipedal vultures scrambling through the corpses for anything useful, caught up in a hoarding panic. Dying by them was something that definitely wasn't on his Armageddon to-do list, but nothing had hurt quite so much as the slices from those palm leaves. It was if Satan himself had given him a dozen paper cuts and then pissed in them.

Which brought him back to his current problem. With no houses or towns or cities or whackjobs, there were no leftovers to scoop up, at least not many. He had found sad little piles of supplies as he wandered, even out here, either dropped by accident or next to whoever had owned them when they died, or just abandoned by some poor soul who couldn't carry them any further. Even these had dried up eventually, and he had exhausted the surrounding area in multiple sweeps, searching for anything useful and different places to sleep. He supposed eventually, he might find people willing to trade, but right now everyone would be too savage to risk bartering off anything that might be needed. It was easier to just kill them and take it, which was another reason he was out here. He hadn't done that yet, and didn't want to reach the point where he would. Gerry thought that if he fell that far, that would be the point he would finally french his pistol, cripple the proverbial camel, his last straw.

Ironically, the government that had been so instrumental in putting him in this horrific position, seemingly designed to obliterate every part of him, body and soul, was also the one that had made it possible to keep going. His trunk and his home had been stocked with all the necessary supplies a capitalist economy and government surplus could offer. Bottles of water, high count ones of Rad-X, fat and luxy bags of blood and Rad-Away, shiny Stimpaks and soothing Med-X. Mentats(he had had all four flavours to begin with, thank you very much, the Space Museum having given away promotional extras to staff across the board), and Buffout were in there as well, not something that was standard in the emergency preparedness booklets, but then he had always believed in being ready for anything. Which was probably the reason he had had anything at all. Years of useless duck-and-cover drills and unending reports of the threat of nuclear action had worn everyone to the point of indifference, but not Gerry, not with his ear on the inside. He had stocked enough for nine, three thrice, just in case, everything in a solid, dependable hiking pack, which had kept him from falling out of that damned dependable palmetto. He threw his last pebble. No cheering.

"Good old, dependable Gerry. Only good for yourself. Nobody else."

He was down to his last few bags and bottles. He needed to venture out of the small valley, his little escapist port in the storm. Looking around, he stopped short halfway through the motion of scanning the area again, cursing and digging a finger into his ear. On top of everything else, just icing on the irradiated cake, he was starting to suffer from one of those many indignities of old male age; there was hair starting to grow in his ears, it _itched_, and he didn't think the woods were going to cough up a pair of tweezers anytime soon to let him take care of the wiry little buggers. It was somehow the loudest argument his mind could kick up towards venturing back into a town somewhere, death by radiation or whackjob coming in second to elderly hirsute agony. If his nose hairs decided to follow in solidarity and turn his nostrils into push brooms, Gerry thought he might go nuts.

"At least that would be a short trip. Need to take a short trip off a long pier. Need to take a trip off this rock first, though. Short trip, long sleep. God willing, let it be the one that doesn't end, amen."

Gerry entertained the thought that he might already be nuts. Standing up with a groan and various joint-produced pops as the rotten yolk of the sun touched the horizon, he grabbed the Cram can, dumped the pebbles into a rag to muffle any noise they might make after picking up any that had missed(it had taken him forever to find the perfect little round ones that he liked to play with, and he was childishly, heartbreakingly attached to them), and jammed both into the pocket of his army jacket. Picking up his tattered pack, the outside festooned with bundles of rags and clothes, anything that looked drab enough to help him blend in, he moved down from the outcropping and back to the overhang he had found. Head twitching, eyes flicking all around, and his ears straining so hard he could hear his own blood roaring in them, Gerry undid his bundles, pulled a few brushy deadfalls he had picked up along the way for this purpose in front of himself, then yanked his dirty hood over his dirty face and shut his eyes, not wanting to see anything after night fell entirely.

There still weren't any stars, except for the ones he dreamed of.


End file.
